Sweetpea's 90 Gallon Project

[Sweetpea]

This was a big surprise! Last week, my husband purchased a 90g reef ready tank with "all the fixins"! :) He even arranged for everything to be delivered and set up, leaving me to only worry about aquascaping!

Well, the tank is here and set up. However, half of the LR I hand-picked last weekend is not here; it must still be at the store. I have called, and they are expecting me tomorrow.

Okay, so no aquascaping for me tonight... I was upset at first, but now I am feeling much better. One day isn't going to make that much of a difference. I waited a year, one more day won't kill me! :)

The rock I do have is in the tank with 20g of water, just enough to cover it. Here are some pics:

[jojo22]

THAT IS AWESOME!!! I wish my significant other was like that!!!

[Whoyah]

Thats really nice. Looks very clean and organized.

[Sweetpea]

Looks very clean and organized.

Thank you! I KNOW it won't look this clean and organized for long!!! ;)
At least now I have it saved for proof that it once sparkled!!! :)

[bobert]

rrrrrrrrrrrreeeeeeeeeeeaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaalllllllyy yyyyyyyyy cool

[Sea~Horse~Whisperer]

Your so lucky......and all I got from my hubby was seahorses, lol. It's going to be a beautiful reef, I can see it already. Good luck. You deserve it.

What kind of sump is that? Did it come as a package (the sump, skimmer, ect.)?

Angie

[graphixx]

oh man virgin tank, it looks sooo nice tracy

[carpenterwrasse]

Love the tank...My other wants me to dismanlte mine...

[dakar]

Who cares about all nice and shiny new... they look much better with salt creep and coraline.

Seriously looks like you went all out... can't wait to watch it grow to life!

[Sweetpea]

they look much better with salt creep and coraline.LOL! My hubby wanted me to take those pics (I hadn't even put water in for the rock yet), and I said it would be good to remember the tank the way it was before it turns "crusty"! :wink:

[mutts]

thats a nice looking tank there tracy can't wait til you get it wet!

[Iconz]

yes, that setup is gorgeous! i'm sure it will run as well as it looks too! i'm taggin along with this one!

[Fatman]

Thats a-freaking-mazing!!! Wow so clean and spotless, makes me want to eat off of it. BRING IT TO LIFE MU HA HA HA! :)

[Sweetpea]

Thanks y'all!!!


so clean and spotless, makes me want to eat off of it.
LOL! I don't think you'd want to do that... it's already not so spotless! ;) I'm trying to decide how long I will wait before starting to add a few things here and there from my other tanks. This is really hard... I waited 3 months with my 20g. The guys who set the tank up recommended that I wait 6 months. I am already itching to put something in... :rolleyes:

[jojo22]

When do we get some "not so spotless" pics???? And yes I'm begging!

[Sweetpea]

Ah well, the camera battery died... it's been charging, and frankly I'm just too lazy to go get it, pop it in, resize the pics for posting, etc. They WILL come, trust me! ;)

[graphixx]

WHAT A TEASE!!!!!

[jojo22]

Ok I am willing to bet that battery is charged by now!!! LOL. I guess subtlety is not my strong point

[harmanrk]

Looks great Tracy, when does Marlin move in?

Robert

[Sweetpea]

I can't believe how long it's been since I updated this thread! Let me start off by saying that there have been some really tough times here... family medical issues, some of them are terminal. Very sad. That being said, I still have the obsession with my tanks, and I don't see that ever changing. Sometimes, I think the hobby is a true anti-depressant!

The last pics were of the tank with less than half of the rock I should have received and no water. Here is a pic (Dec. 3rd) with ~100lbs. of LR, a ~3-4in. sand bed, and filled to the brim with water!

[Sweetpea]

Since this tank was my (early) Christmas present, I had to take appropriate measures. Here is the tank, in all its glory, ready for the holidays:

[Sweetpea]

My husband was more anxious than me to get something in this tank. I have had a Tomini tang in QT for several weeks now, thinking he would be the 1st fish in the new tank, but boy was I ever wrong! My husband made his first fish purchase:

[Sweetpea]

For those of you who wanted to see the "ugly" side of the tank... here ya go:

[Sweetpea]

Here is a photo of interest. My husband is in awe of how small everything looks. That is a 50" television and a 9' tree in the room. EVERYTHING looks tiny, lol!

[Whoyah]

Looks awesome. Thanks for the update.

[dakar]

Amazing how well the relatively 'cheap' Coralife skimmers perform.... The room really looks nice, the tank doesn't dominate the room, but bet with the lights on it has to draw your eye quickly in person.

[Sweetpea]

I am extremely pleased with the skimmr's performance, and the price makes it that much better! If the skimmers weren't so big, I'd put them on the nanos!
I like the tank's place in the room. It can't help but attract attention, but it seems to "fit" nicely. As for the lights, now I understand the appeal of the MHs and the shimmer effect. Very attractive!
We are going to try to get our corals moved over from the 20g and add the tang this weekend, but first I have to go pick up some eggcrate. I am not going to add the hogfish at this time because he is still pretty small, and I'm afraid he would fit through the overflow all too easily.Marlin will be one of the last fish added, as he has gotten pretty big and is quite the "spirited" one! ;)

[hummer]

wow very very nice i would love too see some more pic of that cool sump

[Sweetpea]

I'll see about getting more nasty sumps pics for ya! ;)

Yesterday: I moved over the tang and the hog to the 90g (yes, I changed my mind!;) ). They are doing really well. The tang is the copperband's shadow... he follows him everywhere. The hog is having a blast exploring all of the caves, nooks, and crannies! We picked up a 2" blue tort frag and a handful of chromis (now in QT). Lights aren't on yet, so pics will come later!

[hummer]

re read the whole thread again and wow that is one nice tank and husben you got there .....

have a few ? like ... what are the specs on the pumps,sumps

and witch ways do the floor joyses run and ps...you look like you have a gourgeus home :):)

[Sparky]

WOW!!! Looks great Tracy!! More pictures!!!! Got to love new tanks!!! I have two coralife 65 skimmers they work great!! No problem with them here.

[mutts]

nice looking fish. tank is looking really good tracy!

[Sweetpea]

Thanks Jeff and Amanda!


re read the whole thread again and wow that is one nice tank and husben you got there ..... have a few ? like ... what are the specs on the pumps,sumps and witch ways do the floor joyses run and ps...you look like you have a gourgeus home

Thank you Bob! I was hoping Paul would answer your questions, but alas, he has returned to work after the holidays and has been really busy. I don't know what volume the sump is. I can tell you that it is 24"Lx16"Hx12"W and is roughly half full of water. I have no idea how to calculate approximate gallons when there is a skimmer and 3 bubble-reducing sponges in there. The pump is a Turbo Sea 1100 (1100 gph). The floor beams are in fact running the same direction as the tank, but in that particular place they are only 6" apart, and there is a cross-piece in roughly the middle of the tank. Just got lucky on that one, I think. ;) Hope this helps!

[hummer]

thanks sweetpea

[dakar]

I don't know what volume the sump is. I can tell you that it is 24"Lx16"Hx12"W and is roughly half full of water. I have no idea how to calculate approximate gallons when there is a skimmer and 3 bubble-reducing sponges in there.

I've got the tank volume calculator all re-programmed where you can just plug in the dimesions and it will calculate the volume for you... need to be snazzed up a bit before being released and should have it up this week, watch for a link off the home page. But it's fully functional now at this link:

http://www.captivereefing.com/volume.html

Your sump size works out to be 19.81 gallons.

[Sweetpea]

Cool! Thanks Dave! :)

[hummer]

yes thank you dave too...

[Sweetpea]

I am SO embarassed that it has been such a TERRIBLY LONG time since I posted an update. :sad3:

As I mentioned in an earlier post, we've had a number of family "issues" here. My uncle passed away in February, only two and a half months after being diagnosed with cancer. Some of you might remember my post last summer about going out to Oklahoma and how my uncle bid on/and won a puppy at an auction... that's the same man that is now gone. Here is an excerpt from my MySpace blog:

"Life has been pretty rough here since November. With my grandmother's breast cancer diagnosis, surgery, and radiation, my uncle's cancer diagnosis, rapid decline, and subsequent death, my aunt's personal safety issues and the death of her mother, my cousin's auto accident leaving him in a vegetative state, my son's sports injuries (stitches near the eye and a badly broken wrist), my husband's broken arm, my mother's hospitalization and the unknown status of her condition, and numerous other occurances that pale in comparison to the above, I feel as though we are under attack."

Ahhh... through everything, my tanks (though mainly my 90g) have remained a source of comfort. Marlin's tank has pretty much become a xenia farm (I frag and trade it at the LFS). My 20g has been fish-less since late December/early January when I moved the Helfichi to the 90g. There have been 2 good sized Christmas Tree Worm rocks (~6" long) in there for roughly 5 months, but now it is mainly a holding tank for 14 SPS frags, waiting for the problem with the 90 to be sorted out.

As for the 90 - overall, things have been doing relatively well, though there have been "three bumps".

First of all, my hubby's Copperband went on a hunger strike after 4 or so months and passed away. Shortly after, I got a diamond goby hoping he would keep the sand bed looking nice. He did his "thing" well, but when "real" feeding time came around, the most untypical thing happened. Our Tomini tang would rather viciously chase the goby back into his burrow. He (the goby) only survived somewhere between 6-8 weeks. I tried so hard to entice all of the other fish to the opposite end of the tank and (while they were all busy being pigs) squirt food right to the goby. He always got some, but unfortunately it wasn't enough. His poor belly got thinner and thinner. :(

Then a couple of weeks ago, I saw a dramatic rise in the temperature. One day, the tanks's temp got up to 86.7. Basically, I freaked, lol! My LFS didn't have chillers in stock, so... I got a 7" "turbo" fan to sit inside the stand and blow over the sump plus a 16" fan to blow over the surface of the display. Adequate cooling for a total of $25! Too bad that my blue-tip stag and green bali stag seem to be dead (no polyp extension for a week or so), and my lovely red monti has lost almost all color, though there is still daily polyp extension. We'll just have to wait and see how things work out.

As I said above, I have a bunch of SPS frags in the 20g... just waiting to be absolutely sure that the temp in the 90g is stable before I move them over. So far the 90 has been at an even 80 degrees for over a week now. WooHoo! :-D

Since the loss of the diamond goby, my sand bed is looking icky again, so earlier today I bought a dragon goby AND a 4" yellow tang. It is my hope that introducing the two fish at the same time will keep the Tomini tang distracted enough to leave the new goby alone. I feel bad, though. Both the tang and the goby seem to have acclimated well to the QT tank, but I think the tang is going to have trouble staying in QT for long. I was hoping for a 2 week stay at least (I've QT all of my other fish for 6 weeks), but I really don't think that's going to be a reality. The QT is only a 10g tank, and the poor tang keeps swimming back and forth, side to side bumping his nose on the glass. I now have a multi-part question, but I will post it under the fish forum.

Hopefully, I will get some pics posted in my gallery tonight (I have a bunch to share!).

[Sweetpea]

As mentioned in the last post, we started having having some serious temperature issues as the weather warmed up. By the time June rolled around, we were seeing daily temps of 86-87. The two fans I bought only lowered the temps to 84-85. My SPS and LPS corals started to die off, my favorites being the candy cane coral and the montipora frag. For our 15th wedding anniversary my hubby bought a chiller. Since the bulbs in our lighting fixture were already over 9 months old, he bought 2 new MHs and 2 new PCs at the same time. The new bulbs (to us anyway) made an amazing difference, and within two hours of the chiller installation the temp was down to 79. I'd say that within a week's time, the corals showed a marked recovery. We lost a total of 3 SPS corals: a blue torte, a green bali stag & a bird's nest.

About a month and a half ago, my little Helfrichi firefish started emerging from his cave less and less. It has been about three weeks since any of us have seen him, so I must assume that he is dead. He'd been with us for a year, and he was the definite favorite. I can't say if my husband or I miss him more. We still look for him every day. :(

About the Dragon goby/Tomini tang/Yellow tang situation: I don't think this approach has worked too well. The Tomini tang isn't AS bad as he was with the Diamond goby, but he still gives this little guy a hard time. The Dragon goby has made himself two hidey holes; he keeps the sand around them clean, but forget the rest of the tank, lol!

Today I added a small colony of green pimple shrooms, a good sized bubble coral, and a small sand sifting star. No pics of the star, as he disappeared under the sand moments after he went in. The shrooms and bubble are already opening up rather nicely.


Summary:

Equipment-
90g Oceanic Tech Series (center overflow w/ 2 x 1" drains & 2 x 1" returns, 1/2" glass, no center brace, 2" inside lip, black back pane)
~30g sump
Coralife 125 Skimmer
Turbo Sea 1100 Pump
Aqualite Pro 2x 14K 150w MH + 2x actinic 96 w PC
Prime 1/3 HP Dual Stage Drop-in Chiller

~100lbs. LR
~80 lbs. aragonite sand


Fish-
Yellow tang
Tomini tang
Blue-green chromis
Two-spot candy hog
"Naked" clown pair
Dragon goby

Corals-
Colony polyps, yellow
Star polyps, metallic green
Zoanthids, pink
Zoanthids, yellow & orange
Bulls-eye shrooms, purple & green
Pimple shrooms, flourescent green
Brain coral, flourescent green
Brain coral, red & green
Frogspawn
Hammer coral, pink & green
Candy coral, tan & metallic green
Fox coral
Acanthastrea, orange & green
Bubble coral, green pearl
Montipora, red/orange
Staghorn, blue tip

Other-
Mexican turbo snail, 4
12 jumbo Nassarius snail, 12
Scarlet hermit crab, 4
Emerald crab, 2
Stomatella, lots ;)
Sand sifting star, 3"

Thinking of adding-
More sand
More hermits (mostly blue legs & a few more reds)
1 Cleaner & 1 Peppermint shrimp
Regal tang (or) Unicorn tang
Flame angel
Small group of Bangai cardinals
Powerhead(s) for added water movement (VorTech most likely)
Upgraded lighting (2 x 250w + T5 combo)
Calcium reactor (it's getting tedious keeping up with Ca & alk levels)

I need to get some rock pieces to mount all of those lovely frags I have waiting in the 20g... I can't wait to have fun placing all of those beauties! ;)

Forgive the cloudy pics... First off, I have lots of micro-bubbles in there, and secondly, I had just cleaned up with my new favorite tool: http://www.algaefree.com/easy_blade.html

[Sweetpea]

Here's my candy coral when I first got it in March 2006 (8 heads) and now with 23 heads!

[mutts]

Looking good Tracy!

[Sweetpea]

Here is my favorite montipora. When I got it in August 2006, it was barely larger than a quarter. The pics are in stages from 8-2006, 2-2007, 4-2007 (actinic), 7-2007 (the decline), and today. It was recently knocked over during tank maintenance and 2 small pieces broke off, but the rebound is still clearly visible. I am so thrilled! :)

[Sweetpea]

For a side-by-side comparison, here is the tank when set up and then again 9 months later:

[Sparky]

WOW TRACY!!! Your tank looks great!! The guys who set up your sump area really did a nice job. All so organized, tiddy and perdy

[Sweetpea]

Thanks!

[graphixx]

Tracy as allways beautiful!!!! I think you have some of the funnest tanks to look at. How is Marlin doing???

[Sweetpea]

Thanks! Marlin is doing great! (S)He's getting bigger and darker all the time. ;) I've been toying with the idea of getting a nem for the 20g and moving Marlin over. He's my baby, and I think he deserves a bigger playground! :)

[cweber]

Very nice Sweetpea!!! Love the tank.

[hummer]

awsome lets see a new one if we can

[Sweetpea]

I promise I am working on it... Unfortunately it seems that the times I get on the computer is at night when the tank lights are out.

It's been really, nutty here. My mom's in the hospital for the second time in 3 days. To all of my "family" here, I would really appreciate prayers for her! Thanks a bunch! :)